But full-screen mode is limited. You may not want to eliminate the outside world entirely. If there’s an urgent staff meeting called, you don’t want to miss the e-mail. On the other hand, you don’t want to be distracted by 15 other e-mail messages that could be read later. People already prioritize by thresholds of concentration. That’s why you may say to an assistant: “Please, don’t bother me with calls—unless it’s my spouse.”

Computers should be better at this kind of filtering, but they’re not programmed to anticipate how your attention shifts from one minute to the next. Your e-mail client doesn’t know that you’re trying to focus on another, more pressing problem. But it would be easy enough to create protocols that define different modes of concentration. Many laptops have location settings that allow you to switch from office mode to home mode and thus change a whole host of settings. Why not offer a comparable option for defining different mental states?

This article mentions laptops with locations settings. I am new to mac and am wondering if this is an option on my mac that I just can't find, or if this is in reference to the Windows world I have so happily given up. Also...what is growl? What other options are there to do the same kind of thing?

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